Think of the relationship between “optimism”, “pessimism” and “realism”:
generally, those words are respectively interpreted as “focusing on the good things”, “focusing on the bad things” and “ignoring (or trying to ignore) personal biases on the topic at hand”.
In a way that makes sense, the universe defines our perception on things, not the other way around.

However, let’s suppose you just had a reality check, at least as my terminally online ass knows the term as.
That means something happened to you, that forced you to realize something about yourself - be it your body, your psyche, your knowledge about anything. A realization so undeniable, that, despite your lizard brain’s psychological self-defense mechanisms’ censorship attempts, made you realize you’ve been wrong about something.

The reality check brings your mood down in the short term, and possibly pushes you to improve yourself (or, alternatively, to [concoct a workaround to the tyrannical laws of the universe]) in the long run, but… that’s not truly neutral, is it?
It may be a “bad” feeling possibly followed by a good outcome (see: cognitive dissonance), but it is never a GOOD feeling followed by a possibly bad outcome. The latter case is a confimation bias, if anything - the opposite of a reality check.

Going back to the first paragraph: if someone says “I’m not a pessimist, I’m a realist” you may conflate that person for an pessimist, but not an optimist.

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  • breadsmasher@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    3 days ago

    I think of a reality check as bringing you back to a more neutral perspective? It may feel negative, but like you say thats just short term.

    Reality being neutral, a reality check brings you back to that state?

    • Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      3·
      3 days ago

      As I was writing the body of the post, that’s pretty much the conclusion I came to.
      There’s not much more I could say with my limited knowledge on philosophy and psychology without spreading misinformation or something.

      • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
        3·
        3 days ago

        There’s an interesting book on psychology (by a nobel Prize winner) called “Thinking Fast and Slow”, Daniel Khaneman.

        It’s called regression to the mean. The military said that yelling after bad pilots made them good and praising good pilots made them bad. Kahneman proved that yelling at them when they were good made them bad too and vice versa. It’s just that great pilots can sometimes be bad, and bad pilots can sometimes be good, it had little to do with how they pushed them. Along with loss aversion, people are pretty terrible judges of value.